My Friend, the Widower

“There are things in beets, that you can’t get anywhere else.”
rolls off his tongue so ‘a-matter-of-fact’
that you savor your beet-bite with an, almost,
intellectual appreciation

but ask him, go ahead, for a direct quote on his losses
or the weight in gal(axy)s
of the negative space beside him while he sleeps,
(and I’ve only watched him sleep once, restless through a nap-
but I imagine it light
for the whole forty winks)
waiting, as if by habit, for an unexpected phone call
that he’s been counting on

Ask him though,
and the dialogue begins to dance…
And once in a while, he’ll dance too
if we’ve all had enough,
and the mood is particularly light-hearted, and there’s snow on the ground

But every now and again…
(and I warn you)
every now and again, you will leave that room
with your heart in triplicate of when it arrived

So you’d call it a bit of luck
That if you are there, you are presumably there
for the whole holiday weekend
And he’ll wake you the next morning
And serve you a breakfast you hadn’t expected
with a face on like daylight had erased the whole night before,
a night which might have gotten a little out of hand-
when we all shifted gears from topical to terrible-
Somewhere between the first and fifth glass of wine-
which he was nice enough to spare for the occasion,
Though,
not the occasion He had intended when selecting the bottles
for the case-

And if you’re like me- once dinner is through,
which he labored over with none but your pleasure receptors in mind,
and once desert has been served
– maybe, Brandy Alexanders-
with spiked chicory
And once we’ve all finished picking like starved birds at the scraps
left strategically atop the kitchen island,
Once you’ve dragged him, like you might need to drag a child
By the hand, well past his bedtime-
It is then that you might spy him,
As I have:
Through the fingerprinted haze of your bulbous glass
(the crystal you were careful with)
while its drawn to your stained lips sucking the last of its filler down
As slow
as you possibly
can-
because he is particularly haunting through  a dirty glass…
It is then that he really starts to show his teeth
And his insight
His genius
and his indignation
Perhaps even his trail of literary memories,
Which lead him here, blind folded…
It is there that you might see him regain his sight-
A little confused--  maybe even a little sad
Before telling you,
Like a well behaved boy might,
That it is, past his bedtime,
Before retiring
leaving you in his dust..
To hope hard
For that kind of presence,
One day,
For that kind of heart